


(Filling) Empty Spaces

by hithelleth



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Blackout (Revolution), F/M, Quarantined Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:54:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23718544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hithelleth/pseuds/hithelleth
Summary: Perhaps the attraction has always been there.
Relationships: Jeremy Baker/Charlie Matheson
Comments: 17
Kudos: 19





	(Filling) Empty Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of a lengthy disclaimer, which I don’t think I need in this fandom: heed the tags and if you find this trope/variety thereof offensive in this time and place, the back button is there for a reason. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy!

Charlie was just going to drop off the files Miles had forgotten again, but Jeremy waves her inside as he opens the door.

“Wait, Charlie’s here, I can tell her,” he says to whomever he is on the phone with. “Yep. Will do.”

“Tell me what?” Charlie asks as she follows him into the kitchen.

“Remember that Flynn guy from DOD?”

“Yeah?” Charlie suddenly has a bad feeling. The sleaze-bag strutted into the office first thing in the morning, siding all the way up to her — ignoring all social distancing rules, of course — with his creepy smile.

“They’ve just notified Bass he’d tested positive.”

“That asshole!”

She slaps the files she has brought over on the kitchen island harder than necessary, nearly sending them sliding over the opposite edge.

Jeremy catches them, grimacing in sympathy as he leans back against the kitchen counter.

Charlie scowls, then sags onto one of the breakfast chairs with a sigh. “I can’t go home.”

Well, not _home_ -home, since she has been rooming with Connor to avoid putting Danny at risk, but even Connor’s…

She groans, dropping her head in her hands. “I’m gonna have to ask Connor to move out of his own place.”

It will be terribly unfair, but it is either that or condemning him to isolation, too, and as much as they get along fine as roommates, she doesn’t think being stuck with him 24/7 would go well.

“Or you could stay here,” Jeremy suggests, turning to the cupboards and pulling out two glasses.

“Huh?” Charlie squints at him, thinking about it. “I guess that wouldn’t be the worst.”

“Ow.” Jeremy places his hand on his heart in mock hurt. “How about ‘Thank you, Jeremy, that’s so nice of you to offer.’”

Charlie rolls her eyes. “Thank you, Jeremy, that’s so nice of you to offer,” she parrots as he pours the water from the tap, then grows serious. “No, I mean it. You’re not the worst person to be stuck with.”

“Thanks.” He puts a glass of water in front of her and smirks. “Brat.”

***

Jeremy really isn’t the worst person to be stuck with.

With two spare bedrooms — one he uses as an office — and a backyard he has enough space so they don’t have to be in each other’s hair all the time, which is more than she can say about Connor’s apartment.

And, of course, he had acquired the mentality to always be prepared for anything from Miles and Bass, which means he is well-stocked with basic necessities.

So, after Connor delivers the suitcase Maggie packed for her with her clothes and toiletries together with some extra fresh groceries courtesy of Emma, Charlie requisitions Jeremy’s guest bedroom and settles in in no time.

They spent the majority of the first day adjusting to working from home, which for Jeremy as the VP of Monroe Security isn’t that much of a difference apart from an increase of phone and video calls.

Charlie, who occupies the dining area, however, has to deal with mountains of paperwork instead of going into the field and kicking asses of people who don’t behave. To make it worse, it is mostly Miles’s paperwork, and his barely-there technological skills drive her mad until she engages Danny to dumb things down for Miles as much as he can and set up automatic file sharing between them.

The second day they have a fight over Jeremy’s heavy-handed way of dealing with a personnel problem she disagrees with, at least in that case. Granted, Mia messed up at Pittman Industries, but nobody deserves to be partnered with Strausser of all people, even if Monroe — she won’t think of him as Bass when she is mad at him — insists on keeping him around for sentimental reasons.

The argument sends Charlie to set a punishing pace on a treadmill for an hour while Jeremy disappears in the garage to take out his frustrations on a boxing bag, but by dinner time they both admit the other had a point and end up discussing different conflict-handling strategies both in terms of the company’s inside operations as well as dealing with clients until it gets late.

After that, they fall into an easy routine over the next two days.

Day five is a Saturday, so they work just until mid-morning, only finishing up for the week, and then divide the chores between them, doing the laundry and cleaning.

Since the weather is nice, Jeremy fires up the grill for lunch-slash-dinner and they spend the afternoon outside in the backyard.

When it gets chilly, they move inside, watch some news and after that a movie.

The action sequences spur a heated debate on how realistic the choreography is and the potential of its practical application, which leads to a hands-on demonstration with the furniture moved aside and ends up with Charlie pressed against the wall and Jeremy’s mouth crashing against hers.

His hands anchor her in place, one cupping the back of her head and the other at her side, only just brushing her breast, and she pushes into the touch, her belly coming in contact with his very prominent hard-on that makes her clench deliciously at the promise of how it would feel inside her if she judges by the way he kisses her, hoisting her up so she can wrap her legs around him.

They are both breathing hard when they break apart.

“Miles’s gonna kill me,” Jeremy rasps.

“Probably,” Charlie’s voice comes out husky, “but what Miles doesn’t know…” She trails off with a shrug and drags his mouth back to hers.

They make their way to his bedroom making out and pulling their shirts off, revelling in skin-to-skin contact. Charlie pushes her leggings off together with her panties — he groans at the sight — and scoots back on the bed, eyeing him as he gets rid of his pants and boxers with a groan.

“Christ, I knew you’d be big.” The comment just escapes her, stopping him in his track.

“Thought about that, huh?” he smirks.

(So maybe she did.)

“Shut up and come here,” she orders.

He doesn’t waste time, only stopping to get a condom from the nightstand drawer and then he is there, above her and all around her and finally inside her, and he does most certainly live up to her earlier speculation, taking her high and still higher until her mind goes blank as she falls apart and takes him with her.

***

Once they regain the ability to move, they take turns in the bathroom, and Jeremy switches off the lights and the TV, and then she climbs back into the space he leaves waiting for her.

She wakes up to an empty bed next morning and makes her way downstairs to find him making breakfast.

“You okay?” he asks, half-turning from the stove as she gingerly takes a seat at the kitchen island.

“Yeah. A little better than okay,” she admits.

Actually, a _lot_ better than okay.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” she warns as he smirks.

She regrets the phrasing when his grin grows wider.

“Which h—”

She grabs an apple from the fruit bowl in front of her and throws it at him, but he catches it, laughing as he turns back to the stove and takes a bite.

Charlie sticks her tongue out at his back.

***

With the late start, Sunday passes quickly. They do some more tidying up, then read and watch TV until a work emergency comes up mid-afternoon, because idiots never rest, but as night falls the sweet, electrifying tension that has been growing between them all day snaps like a cord.

Charlie’s flailing hand touches his arm and they freeze in a moment, unable to look away from each other, so she presses the off button on the remote and then stands up, pulling him with her, not that he resists beyond a mumbled (and unnecessary) “You sure?” as she leads upstairs, turning off the lights on the way.

The following days go like that: they work, mostly separately, and work out (also mostly separately), share meals and chores, and in between they fall into each other (for a different sort of work-out.)

It might be — no, it _is_ the best sex of her life.

(She barely knew what she was doing with Jason. And sleeping with Connor was a mistake. So the pinnacle of her experience used to be a one-night stand with a bartender in Arizona.)

She likes how he touches her: irreverently, like a woman, not an idea of one.

The sense of calm and safety that comes with it, that she blames on endorphins.

She still wakes up with a racing heart one night, though, trying to gulp down quiet, shallow breaths.

His arm tightens lightly around her waist not long after.

“Nightmare?” he whispers.

“Yeah.” She rolls on her back and draws in a few deep, shaky breaths until she feels her chest loosen.

“Still seeing the Doc?” he asks quietly after a while.

“Uh-huh. Kelly’s great. We’re having a video session next week, actually.”

_When everyone else bought her act that she was okay, it was him who slid the business card on her desk without making a fuss about it._

“ _She’s a bitch,” was his only remark, “and won’t let you bullshit her, but she won’t bullshit you either.”_

He was right — that is why she still continues with now monthly appointments.

“Glad it helps.”

She shrugs. “Well, at least I don’t wake up whimpering in a corner anymore.”

She can more feel than see him wince from the corner of her eyes as he half-scoffs.

From anyone else it would be a sign of alarm or dismissal, or, worst of all, pity, but from Jeremy it is the closest to sympathy she can bear. Then again, as hard as it is to imagine that if anyone knew the feeling it would be him, Charlie has heard all about how Miles and Bass stumbled upon him beaten half to death while on a camping trip.

She sighs, turning to face him.

And because it is Jeremy, she confesses what it took Dr. Foster months to drag out of her.

“It’s not that he tried to kill me, you know? Or Tom. It’s that no matter what I do or how much I beg… I always have to kill him.”

The rest of it she has never talked about with anyone but her therapist pours out of her, how mad she was at what they did to Jason and how guilty and hopeless she felt when she faced Tom, and he simply listens and holds her, stroking her hair until she falls back asleep.

***

At some point, they run out of condoms.

“I’m on birth control,” she tells him. “And I’m clean.”

“Yeah, me too. Clean, I mean,” Jeremy elaborates when Charlie giggles. “If you’re sure? Otherwise we can get creative.” He winks.

“I thought we’ve already been creative?”

He chuckles. “Oh, you have no idea.”

And then he shows her.

***

Perhaps the attraction, subtle but undeniable, has always been there, ever since she first showed up at Monroe HQ in her sophomore year of college.

_She unearthed Dad_ _’s old journals and wouldn’t listen to him, feeling betrayed — how could have he lied about mom dying?! (Although, he had never said it, she had just assumed) — and eager to escape the stifling air of Sylvania Estates._

_Then she found Miles in Chicago, switched universities and fields of study, and tagged along with him to Philly. (Dad_ _— she made up with him, Maggie, and Danny followed two years later.)_

_Wide-eyed and idealistic, she was, despite being angry and determined to sate her hunger for adventure, scared of the different sort of harshness from the one she had used to know in that brave new world she discovered._

Jeremy’s annoying chipper attitude combined with sarcasm and a certain brand of callousness was puzzling then, but unlike Miles and Monroe, who still sometimes see her as a five-year-old, he has never patronised or underestimated her.

In the six years since, they have formed a friendship Charlie treasures and that has made the leaps to being lovers and then not unremarkable.

Although, the return to the outside world is really just a pause, and a short one.

***

She lasts two weeks before she walks into his office on Friday afternoon, closes the door and turns the knob.

Then she rounds his desk and perches on the edge as he closes the document on his screen and peers up at her.

“Charlie? What are you doing?”

“You know what.”

“I thought we had an understanding.”

It was an unspoken agreement — what happens in quarantine stays in quarantine.

She shrugs. “What if I’ve changed my mind?”

He sighs. “Charlie, your family…”

“Look. Sure, Miles’s gonna be pissed, he’ll probably punch you, and you’ll probably let him, ‘cause you’re all dumb men,” she chuckles as Jeremy rolls his eyes, “but he’ll come around. ‘Cause after what he’s done, he doesn’t get to throw stones. None of them do.”

Jeremy leans back in his chair, studying her, his throat working as he swallows. “You’re gonna break my heart.”

The statement startles her.

“How so?” she demands, but her voice gives in at the severe expression on his face.

“Because sooner rather than later you’ll find someone your age you can have kids with and —”

“I don’t wanna have kids,” she interrupts him. “Already raised one.”

“It’s not the same,” he objects.

“No, it’s worse,” she counters. “It was harder. After mom left… I would wake up on the hour to check if Danny was still breathing. I’m not sorry, ‘cause I love him, but it was enough for a lifetime. So.”

She finishes pointedly.

Then a thought strikes her. “Unless you don’t want —”

“Don’t,” he catches her wrist as she makes a move to leave. “Don’t ever for a moment think that I don’t want you.”

And because he has always told her the unvarnished truth, she believes him.

***

She is muttering to herself to remember to bring her favourite long-sleeved fall t-shirt over when Jeremy snorts.

“Do you even have anything left there?” he asks when she looks at him quizzically. “You’ve basically moved in, not that I mind,” he adds, waving it off as he sees the same realisation hit her. “But do you think I didn’t notice you’d filled all the empty spaces?” he teases.

Then his expression softens and he repeats, “You filled all the empty spaces,” and Charlie knows he isn’t talking about closets or drawers anymore.

“God, Jer, so did you.” She doesn’t care that her voice cracks as she crosses the distance between them to step into his open arms. “So did you.”

~FIN~

**Author's Note:**

> I realised this March (when I turned to Revo fics for comfort because I couldn't focus on anything else due to a toothache) I’d never written Jeremy/Charlie and then I scrolled by a ‘quarantined together is now totally a thing’ post on Tumblr and as I was planning to write something for Camp Nano, I put two and two together and _voilà_. 
> 
> What did you think? Comments are always welcome.


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